Sam Rodeo Team Has International Flavor

One of the first memories of one of the Sam Houston State
University rodeo team's most accomplished performers was riding
horses. His mother and father were both trick riders.

When he was only 14 he too became a trick rider, dressing
in Native American costumes and amazing crowds with his spinning
turns on a saddle, standing and upside down riding, and the
whole repertoire of tricks made famous in the United States
years ago by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Quite an all-American story, it seems. One that might have
occurred in Laramie, Wyoming or Fort Stockton, Texas. Except
that it happened in Cuges les Pins, near Marseilles and the
French Riviera.

Yvan Jayne did all this in his country before coming to the
United States as an exchange student five years ago.

When he was in Magnolia High School he won the bareback riding
title for the Texas High School Rodeo Association. He had
scholarship offers from schools in Colorado, Missouri, and
Texas, but chose to travel just up the road to Sam Houston
State University, where he is now nearing graduation.

The Sam Houston State rodeo team claims more national team
titles than any other National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association
school. This year marks the 50th anniversary of its first
national individual title. Team coach Roger Hanagriff said
Jayne fit right in.

Yvan (pronounced Evin, like Kevin) and his teammates will
be taking on other Texas and Louisiana schools this week in
Sam Houston State's collegiate rodeo, with performances at
7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday at the Walker
County Fairgrounds. Tickets are $5 advance at Cavender's and
the alumni office on campus and $7 at the gate.

Jayne competes in both the bareback and saddle bronc events,
and is one of the top performers in the NIRA's Southern Region.
He has qualified for the National Finals Rodeo each of his
three years at SHSU, and finished second in the Southern Region
in 2002.

"It takes so much time," he said of his sport. "We
think of it as 8 seconds, but there's lots of traveling, planning,
practicing. It takes a lot of hard work."

He lifts weights and runs to keep his 5-11, 160-pound frame
in shape, and works out on a mechanical bucking dummy. A minor
ankle sprain in 2002 has been his only injury.

Jayne takes his pickup and camper on trips that average 1,000
miles almost every weekend, except summers when he goes back
to France to visit family and friends and do some teaching
in rodeo schools there.

After completing his degree in agriculture business in December,
he plans to start work on an advanced degree, continue collegiate
rodeoing, and "hit the road hard" as a pro rodeoer
after receiving his master's. He is already a member of the
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and has had success
there, especially at the Mesquite Rodeo near Dallas.

Last year he earned $5,000 for his riding efforts as a pro,
and also is paid expenses as a SHSU rodeo team member. College
rules allow students to also be paid as professionals.

Yvan and Leslie Cronin, a student/secretary in the SHSU agriculture
department, are planning a December 04 wedding. Someday when
he hangs up his spurs, he would like to teach agriculture
and/or French at a community college, preferably at one that
has a rodeo team he can also coach.

While we may think of the sport of rodeo for its connection
to the American West, Jayne competes alongside cowboys from
Australia, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico. He points out that
trick riding goes back to Mongolian horsemen of several centuries
ago.

His father has gone into the business of producing stock for
the growing sport of rodeo in Europe, he said, but his family
supports his efforts here.

"They're proud," he said. "There are not many
French guys who go to the United States and get college educations."